Two more menus user tests focusing on this…

Two more menus user tests, focusing on this layout concept: User 5 (in the series) & User 6.

User #5

Step 1: Log in

No issues.

Step 2: Go to menus

No issues.

Step 3: Add a menu

No issues.

Step 4: Add pages to menu

No issues.

Step 5: Reorganize pages

No issues.

Step 6: Set as primary menu

  • My instructions make less sense now that everything isn’t on the same page. But she figured it out eventually.

Step 7: Add another menu

No issues.

Step 8: Add links

  • She adds the links without entering a label, but then figures it out, and corrects it.
  • 7:53 – BUG – Oops… My code broke menu item editing links (i.e. cancel, remove)

Step 9: Add custom menu widgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user.

No issues.

User #6

Step 1: Log in

No issues.

Step 2: Go to menus

No issues.

Step 3: Add a menu

No issues.

Step 4: Add pages to menu

No issues.

Step 5: Reorganize pages

2:25 – BUG – “cancel” link doesn’t appear to do anything.
2:53 – “sub item” help text FTW! – “Oops, no I don’t want a sub item”, she says when she drags a menu item to a sub menu spot (and the new “sub item” helper text shows up). She immediately recognizes her error, and fixes it.

Step 6: Set as primary menu

5:00 – This user also gets hung up trying to figure out where to set this. Note: The instructions were originally written for when the “theme location” metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. box was on the same page.
6:00 – She finally figures out that it’s under the “manage menus” tab.

Step 7: Add another menu

No issues.

Step 8: Add links

7:42 – She adds the links without entering a label.

Step 9: Add custom menu widget

No issues.

Observations/Thoughts

  • I think this went really well. Much better overall, compared with the first four user tests.
  • We should likely add a yellow success message when they change their “primary menu” (under “menus within your theme”).
  • The “cancel” link when editing a menu option doesn’t appear to do anything, and I unintentionally broke the formatting of those links.
  • The second user noticed the “sub item” helper text, and quickly remedied her dragging error (woot!).
  • Setting a primary menu doesn’t really flow well on the “manage menus” tab (at least with this set of scenarios). The users both figure it out (after some searching). I don’t think we can move the “menus within your theme” meta box back to the add/edit screen (it just doesn’t belong there IMO). Any thoughts as to how we could improve the flow of setting a primary menu after a menu has been saved?
  • Both users initially add links without entering a labels (one of them spots the error later, and fixes it). We’ve seen this with previous users as well. At one point I had suggested changing “label” to “link text”. I guess we could try that. What else could we do here to improve the chances that they’ll include a label?

Any additional observations or thoughts?

#menus-ux